Ep 12： This REALLY happened at one of Hollywood's Biggest Animation Studios !!!
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
136.77263
Summary
In this episode, I talk to a man who has never shared his story about how he got into Hollywood and how he became a story trainee at Disney. He talks about being sexually assaulted by a male co-worker at a party and how it almost killed him.
Transcript
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I froze. I couldn't move and everybody froze in the room and I finally able to like manage to pull
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my shorts and just basically I ran out of the room. This happens most unexpected place, a place
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you make children movies. Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk the podcast. I am Shashli Flo and here in my
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podcast I talk about other things that I usually talk about on my YouTube channel where I post
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things every single day mostly about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's legal drama but here on my
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podcast I do talk about other things and sometimes I talk about serious things which I will talk about
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today with a very special guest. Someone contacted me in LA a little while back and they said you know
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I have this story for you. This person who experienced something so horrific in Hollywood
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and this person has never talked about it before. I read the story and I was shocked. I was just
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so disgusted and I just could not believe what I was reading and the thing is I was assuming that
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this happened to a woman and I didn't realize it actually had happened to a man and when this person
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told me that he wanted to come here on my channel and tell his story I was so honored by that and I
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hope you guys will listen to his entire story and share some love in the comment section because I
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think it's amazing that he found the strength to talk about this and do it here in this amazing
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community. Yes if you're watching on YouTube you can comment below if you are listening on other
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podcasts please share and like and subscribe if you haven't and yes please welcome Kam. Thank you so
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much for being here on Flossom Talk and telling your story which is a very disturbing story but we're
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going to start talking about something a little nicer. We're going to start talking about how you got
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into Hollywood because that's kind of a crazy story. It is and thank you for inviting me. I used to live in
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Arkansas. I started waiting tables at this place called Jackson Suzanne's. It was a French restaurant
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and when Chef moved to California to Malibu to work on this at this restaurant called Splash
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he said you want to come over? I said oh yeah. So I went there during 80s, mid 80s and Johnny Carson
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who was one of our customers, regulars, who almost came every other night and I had a habit of drawing.
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Drawing of I love drawing Duffy Duck. I love drawing sketches of people making him caricatures of them.
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So one night Johnny's wife left for the bathroom and then we were chatting and honestly he was he had some alcohol
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and he saw those sketches and he goes like what are you doing here? You should be working at Disney.
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And I go oh yeah right okay. Whatever. I didn't make anything big about it and it's like but when time passed I
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started thinking about it. I said maybe I should at least find out where Disney was. I didn't even know where Disney
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Studios are and um so I looked up the yellow pages they didn't have Google back then um and I got their
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number I called them up find out where they were at Flower Street in Glendale and I hopped in my
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uh Volkswagen Bug and got all my um sketches in a bag not even a portfolio and I went there and there was a
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lady named Dee at the reception and I said well I have all these sketches and I want to work at Disney
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and I placed the sketches on the counter and she kind of laughed at me and she goes well do you have a
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phone number you can leave with us in case we like your sketches and I said oh yeah I left my number
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and I went back to my car and I said this was stupid and uh two weeks went by I got a call from them
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um guy named Bill Matthews he was in charge of the training programs there and he said that they
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thought I had talent and uh he said um they wanted me to go there's the school called CalArts California
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Institute of the Arts in Valencia I did that for three weeks uh three months and then I came back and
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I presented my portfolio to them and I got it I became a story trainee um Lion King uh that was my first
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picture I worked on they moved me to another picture called Pocahontas I don't know if you are familiar with
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yeah and I became a story artist there um I worked on Hercules I worked on Kingdom of the Sun
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anyhow so I worked there 15 years altogether 15 years at Disney and that was your like dream job
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would you say that was a dream job for you I loved working there it wasn't just I never saw it as a job
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Disney was I thought like I was I was playing and getting paid for it it wasn't as business like
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like it like it is now it was a great environment great people to work with I would say nothing bad
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about them I mean yeah they may say you know hey Disney's cheap yeah they're a little bit cheap
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but it's okay um they give you a lot of opportunities because like if you work at Disney everyone respects
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you everyone knows your name that's the placket I got like you know for 10 years oh wow I worked at
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Sony for 11 years then I worked at DreamWorks for seven years I think and then year and a half at
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Warner Brothers all together four studios yeah so you know the studios you got to know I do know the
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yeah I knew though the big buddies and then you did have an experience that changed everything yeah you
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know the the um if you ask me what happened like I would say summarize the whole thing I would say
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I had a dream came through and someone came and crushed it and took it away from me
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I was such an outgoing person I was um people always told me like you know
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Khan always brings good ideas in meetings in brainstorm meetings even like you know
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when we go to lunches without with my colleagues we would discuss the movie we're working on and
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story problems I I love that you know because it wasn't a job it was again like it was part of my life
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I didn't like you know go home and and thought okay you know what I've done my job today
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I took the whole thing with me in the middle of the night I was cold my friend and talk about like
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well we can do this here we can do that there it was like that um so after the incident um
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I I stopped um going out I stopped uh I try not to go to meetings I try not to
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go to lunches anymore I start working from home um I I I was very hesitant to talk
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about my ideas I didn't even bring them up sorry I just have to jump in here to say thank you so much
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VPN you can find the link in my description thanks again to Surfshark and now back to Khan's story so
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can you can you can you kind of go I know this is hard for you to talk about but can you go through
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that day what actually happened to you uh that changed everything that changed your life that
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changed the way you look at life and and work in and everything well okay we have I need to first talk
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about like how we do our jobs like I I'm given scene which is script pages um that's what we call lounge
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the director and uh PA usually taking notes they launch me um on the pages of the sequence um we talk
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about it and director says this is what I want from the scene um and then I start board it um and we don't
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just uh like in live action when they board they usually think about the staging but we also think
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about acting staging everything sometimes dialogue we add dialogue we take out dialogue uh we kind of make
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the movie on storyboards honestly so every time we finish the storyboarding process like we have to pitch
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it to directors and get their notes and the way we pitch usually we uh upload it on a uh server
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the the studio server and then um we pitch it on the big screen through our computers
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so everybody else sits as i pitch everybody else lines up and sits behind me and after pitch i get up on
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and i face them i turn around and face them standing up in front of the um the big screen and we go
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because we have to go through shot by shot with the directors their notes um so basically that day
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that's what happened i pitched the scene given scene both directors were there we had a
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main director and a co-director we also had the head of story in the room we had the producer in the room
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along with um the the line producer we had the um the layout head of layout we have the department heads
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they're all there because they're all there because if there's any change in the story they have to know
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uh they have to then adjust their um backgrounds and whatever um so um there were several people i would say about
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more than 10 people in the room including one person was joining us from um zoom on a screen
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a different screen a different screen on my back um and from vermont a story artist
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so i finish pitching the scene then i turn around and get up face the director and others
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and i noticed the the director got up and left his seat and start moving towards me and past me
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i thought he was gonna um move the screen to see different shots he he probably started oh he saw
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something he wants to see that and before i had a chance to turn around um
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i felt two hands grabbing my shorts and forcefully you know pulled them down all the way everything
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everything um i was i was like i i froze i couldn't move and everybody froze in the room
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and i i i was going like i didn't understand what was going on and i was in shock i was
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so you were done you were standing there basically naked in front of all these people exactly
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um co-director was a feet away from me sitting i mean i catch his eyes and they he was doing this
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and i finally able to like managed to pull my shorts and just basically i ran out of the room
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went back to my office i could hear his laugh um as i was leaving was anyone else laughing no no
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whole room was frozen um i went to back to my office i think it was maybe less than a minute
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uh both co-director not the director who did it co-director and head of story came to my room and
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and and told me to go to hr you have to go to the hr con i i was just sitting there
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sudden disbelief and shock um after like maybe five minutes and all this time they were saying let's go
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we'll come with you just go to hr um producer came in the room and this is what he said to me he said
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con this was horrible um i'm so sorry this happened can i bring the director in to apologize from you
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wow um i just looked at him i didn't answer i didn't say anything he left the room
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and he came back with the director and director was
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i mean i i don't think he knew what he did he goes con i'm sorry man i was just it was a joke i thought
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it was a good joke that's what he told me it but but it was a joke oh i want to tell him like you know
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i can't repeat the joke this time i will pull you out your shorts in front of you yeah but um
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um um but that uh right there told me i i know a lot of people says like you know why didn't you go to
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hr why didn't you yeah all this years well i had that was a message if they wanted because producer
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is the supervisor in the in the room at that point and you know we took these um we watched these videos
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it was it's about government guidelines and rules in the workplace um so you have any training you have
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to do training and once a year every year and you have to pass if you can't pass they make you take it
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again and again until you pass you don't you're out you cannot work in this studio and it's not just
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studios it's um it could be a home depot you have to have that uh it could be um lawn supermarket you have
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to have to have that you know um so and i when i watched that video um i know i'm so sure and it is
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that way i know because i took that video so many times it says if the supervisor witnesses a a
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harassment or assault they have to report no matter victim is want to report it or not that's not the
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thing they have to report it and they witnessed it yes so it's not like they have to take your word for
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it they were there and they saw what happened right and they didn't do anything oh well they did
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okay he came to my room and he said can you accept the apology basically he was saying
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let's that's making it even worse don't you think that made it worse in my exactly that would make
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it worse because that's even more like i don't know intimidating or you're like in still in shock
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in such a horrible place like he was you know taking advantage of you in front of all these people
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and then yeah he says it's a joke that's the that's the apology yeah he thought it was a joke and
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and the producer instead of going to hr he's telling me forget about this con he did he said that to you
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well he didn't say it that that way but he said can i bring him in and apologize and basically he's saying
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that's what he was suggesting yeah yeah that's all that he needed to do was apologize and then
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everyone could just move on yes nothing happened we're a happy family you know um which makes me
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think i i cannot you know i cannot prove this but i cannot imagine because he came into my room
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maybe five six minutes later um not right away like the co-director and and the head of story
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put these who came into my into my room five or six minutes later i guarantee you he called
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someone up higher and discuss what happened i cannot true it but i think that was his orders
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okay whatever you do make this go away honestly and and i that's what i got the message was
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just accept the apology and let's move on because he could have come to my room and said come
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i'm terribly sorry but don't worry i'm going to hr yeah if you can come with me it'll be great if not
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i will report this that's what he should have done so no one ended up reporting this no no one and honestly
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when i saw and felt you know the producer is is not backing me he said he's telling me to basically accept the apology
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i said i want to keep my job and i don't want to look like a troublemaker because i understood this is
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this is how i could keep my job and that's sorry go ahead but do you think do you think that they would
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you know ask you to leave whatever if you actually brought it up that that would be a consequence for
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you or that they maybe would push you out of your job because you know because you actually reported
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right i don't know that but that's what i thought that's that's that's the impression i got because
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um again as i said i didn't see the producers telling me i'm going to report this age to hr this is
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not acceptable behavior instead he was saying let's just take just take the apology and
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they not they did not fire the director you know director that is the most shocking part to me i have
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to say i mean of course what he did is so shocking but that that they actually kept him and he's still
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working is he still working there no um and he worked there well over a year after you know the
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incident so it wasn't because of you anything that happened to you no no no not at all he got a better
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offer from another studio and he moved on to that other studio um that was another thing that
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thing that gets to me is that my life went downwards but these guys they kept their you know the one of them is still producing
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in major hollywood studio and the other one is the director is going around doing his one man
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can you imagine he wrote a book about how to make your life better he did oh yeah
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yeah if you um if you google him up you can see
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yeah he's i mean um i don't think his wife his wife knows what he did i don't think these kids knows
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what he did but um so this is about is it 10 years ago now it it was in 2016.
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okay so nine years ago and when after this happened uh you kind of stopped going into
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work and started working from home and started isolating yourself well in my mind this is what
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i was thinking everyone knows in the studio what happened to me i everyone knows well that's what i was
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thinking that's oh yes yeah okay i get it yeah because you know what yeah people leave the room they start
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talking yeah you know and and i i thought like you know when i go to studio everyone's eyes out of me
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and i thought i was a joke of the town and i i didn't want to see face that and
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i i i i try to not to go to meetings um and i you know it's it's funny when i receive a call
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from a colleague i used to like jump on the call and we would discuss i couldn't even answer the calls
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i didn't want to even talk to them it's um you know everything i love doing became a burden to me
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it was a it was hard and it still is i mean um did you yeah did you get depressed or like anxiety
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social anxiety yeah as a matter of fact that's what it was i think you know i didn't want to be
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around a lot of people and i still don't um oh yeah yeah oh my god sorry this is such a horrible
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story i mean when i spoke to you because we did speak on the phone before this interview and i spoke
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to you i was just in disbelief i was like how can anyone first of all how can anyone just do such
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a horrible thing to someone and then he was a grown man and then how can he just get away with it
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and how can people just stand there and watch and do nothing i mean yeah yeah it is uh so disturbing
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you know if if anything comes out of this i would really love to have
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some sort of like you know awareness this this happens in the most unexpected place a place you make
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children movies yeah movies for kids studio is basically okay with it i don't buy at all the
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studio didn't know about it they knew about it of course i mean you know like there were so many
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witnesses watching this do you know if this man did anything similar to other people have you heard any
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stories no i didn't honestly but um maybe i was an easy target for him i don't know well i was like
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now i'm 66 i was like 56 years old and i'm not even your friend you know um i had no relationship
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with him at all outside of work you know um i never gave him any reason to like he could do that to me
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i mean there is no reason for anyone ever to do that to anyone i know i mean it's so absurd to me this man
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is so sick he's like he is so sick and he got away with it i really hope that i have to make your lives
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better i feel like first of all i have to say that i'm so proud of you for coming out here and talking
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about it now and i i really think that you know it can help a lot of others and i think around especially
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for men there's even more stigma around this and actually speaking up and experiencing something
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like this and in the workplace and just like because for us i mean i've never experienced
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something like that at all and to just kind of understand the mindset of what happens to you when
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you experience something like this like everyone would say like you said why didn't you go to a jar
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why didn't you report it instantly and then probably that makes you feel even more guilt around
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it and start thinking did i invite him like you were just saying you know he wasn't my friend
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i didn't you know i didn't deserve this why did this happen to me and all those questions that you
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know and i think it's so important to talk about these things um yeah i really applaud you doing that
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uh shasti it's by the way i learned your name yeah so it's so good well so it's very easy to say you
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know go go go to your child speak up blah blah blah well if if it happens to you it's not that easy
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i didn't want to even think about it i just but also like you know you're working and you still have a job
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you don't know how other people other studios will react because let's say i have a there's a
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director who worked with me in the others in another studio and who wants me to work with him in his new
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movie that he's making but studio can't say oh he's troubled yeah they can't say that you know because
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he went to hr he did you know you never know and and when you're working you want to protect yourself
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and that's what i did and um but then also thinking about it i never had a time
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to think through because i was always busy well maybe i chose to be busy also like work
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so i forget about it but after i retired it's like i had all the time i and i i had time to
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process the whole thing and and really understand what happened to me
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you know um and what kind of damage it created on me it's now i'm realizing that it's like
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i live in my own prison basically in a way have you have you now taken any steps to get uh some justice
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for this are you did you ever think about that like you know legal actions against them
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yeah yeah i'm i'm thinking about it i well i have a lawyer but i want to wait i want to see what's
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you know this was a good this is good actually let's see what this creates i mean i want them to
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to acknowledge what they did is wrong number one and make sure they don't do it again
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why do you why do you have people watch those videos um several hours
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the training yeah and then take tests and pass those tests if they don't watch them again watch
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those videos again and then allow this kind of i'm sorry to say this is where shit happened
00:33:11.500
you know what it is it's in the little bit of in hollywood culture i think it's like we're untouchable
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you know and i feel like i've been talking about so much here on this channel as well you know how
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there's so many cowards out there and i think people are so afraid of losing their jobs for speaking up and
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most of the time it feels like it doesn't really you know it's it doesn't benefit you in any way if
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you actually speak up and that's probably you know like you were saying that you were afraid that you
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will lose your job and that people wouldn't be wanting to hire you again and i think these are the
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same things that you hear from women that have experienced things like this that they don't want to stand
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up and talk about it because they're afraid and um anyways yeah but i'm so so so honored that you
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wanted to talk about it here and i really hope that something good will come out of this for you
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maybe you write a book about it and you know maybe yeah who knows we're gonna make it we make a movie about
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this yeah yeah they all claim like you know um they do these big benefits and they they always claim
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how they are behind like you know um what's it the she movement um me too me too movement
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and how they're like you know black lives matter movement they're behind and then turn around do this
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kind of stuff yeah don't don't do that you know be honest you know um the hypocrisy yes honestly
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that's like that's too much and in this day and age stop it man you're a grown-up yeah be a grown-up
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it's it's cowardly you know what the the way the producer that day and what the director did to me
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it's cowardly it's it's it's it's i don't think a strong person would do those things of course i
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mean you know it's a lot of insecurities is a lot of being a coward being a complete jerk and a narcissist
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and an yeah basically he was thinking like you know i'm an actor and um i have shows and um
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i'm the director here and he's nothing i can do anything i want to him that's what he was thinking
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and the producer was thinking like oh you know what i gotta keep my job so i gotta make sure
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this this doesn't blow up on our faces you know yeah there's more environment yeah i know it really
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sounds like that anyways count it was so nice to talk to you and i really appreciate your honesty and
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openness and everything and i'm sure all the viewers here are really going to appreciate to hear your story
00:36:29.180
as well and it's so important to get these stories out there so thank you really thank you thank you
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for doing this and um yeah i hope you get enough strength back to enjoy life again and that's something
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good pasta day will come out in the end and uh yeah hopefully thank you thank you thank you thank you
00:36:52.620
thank you so much to khan for coming here and sharing this story i know it wasn't easy for him to talk about
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this we spoke on the phone before this interview and i have to say i was just shocked i'm still shocked by
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this i mean i have no words um but as i said i'm so honored that he came here to talk about this and
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so please share some love in the comment section if you're watching this on youtube or if you're
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listening on spotify apple amazon uh please share and like and yes if you haven't subscribed yet please
00:37:25.100
do and hit the notification bell on youtube if you're there so you don't miss an episode of my podcast
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or an episode on my youtube show and again thank you so much for giving khan the chance to tell his